This lecture is based on the paper Analysis of a full-scale slope failure test on a sludge embankment published in ICE Proceedings, Geotechnical Engineering in 2019. The paper can be downloaded here.

In the framework of a reorganization of several historical wet sludge deposits of a chemical processing plant, embankments consisting of naturally consolidated sludge are constructed on top of existing deposit sites in order to increase storage capacity.

Laboratory and in situ testing was executed to characterise the industrial CaF2 sludge, which can be compared to a soft clay.

Natural drying of the industrial sludge during depositing and elevation works, resulted in a significant variation of the soil parameters. To calibrate the embankment stability analysis procedure, a full-scale slope failure test was conducted on a test embankment built with the CaF2 sludge.

The encountered problems during sludge handling and soil investigations are being discussed, as well as the lessons learned from the full-scale slope failure test.

Kristof Verreydt graduated as a Master in civil engineering technology at KU Leuven in 2010. After graduation, he started working as project engineer at Triconsult nv, a spin-off of KU Leuven Research and Development. Triconsult is specialised in construction pathology, restoration and conservation, environmental geotechnics.

Since 2014, he combines his work as project engineer with PhD research at KU Leuven, Civil Engineering Department.